You know, when you watch as much television as the AtAT staff does (we actually receive federal funding from government agencies monitoring our seemingly inhuman televisual intake), there can be a few unsettling side effects. For one thing, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a mental distinction between actors and the characters they play. After a while you might start thinking that, say, Drew Carey actually works as a middle manager in a department store human resources department and there just happen to be lots of camera crews around who record everything he does and then edit the footage together into what, coincidentally enough, just happens to turn out to be about twenty-two minutes' worth of entertaining footage every week. (Well, except for during the summer, when his life apparently turns dull and unsatisfying for a potential viewing audience.)

The other side effect of intense withdrawal from that big bore some people call the "real world" is that those celebrities become our friends. Real people are hurtful, petty, and unreliable; TV people, by contrast, just want to love you. Likeable TV characters (and therefore, by the first side effect detailed above, the actors who play them) are like family-- but without all that pesky judgment and condescension and tearful screaming matches at large holiday gatherings. What could be fluffier? Personally, we find it all works out wonderfully-- except when a member of our happy TV family does something to disappoint us.

Yes, it happens. For instance, despite the fact that Michael J. Fox has no Elvis in him, we admit that we really grew to like him during his stint as the deputy mayor of New York on Spin City. (Nothing against Charlie Sheen, of course, whose performance on the show thus far has been lovely and who has held a special place in our hearts ever since he hit the pinnacle of his career as the burnout in the police station in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And isn't it great that Cameron eventually got over his dysfunctional relationship with his father, changed his name to Stuart, and landed a gig as a sex-obsessed dweeb on Fox's-- now Sheen's-- staff?)

But these new Gateway commercials, well... you've seen them. Mr. J. Fox is itching for a new computer, he wants it fully-loaded, and he wants its for under a thousand bucks. Some English woman urges him to call Gateway, who sets him up with some 933 MHz box with a 17-inch monitor and either a free DVD-ROM drive or a color printer, all for $999. Michael, Michael, Michael... how could you? What, no sense of style? No sense of taste? You wound us, Michael. Surely you could afford to fork over a bit more and get a computer more worthy of your lofty standing in the hearts and minds of the couch potato nation. We hear Apple has plenty of Cubes sitting around, for instance.

But then, suddenly, redemption! While the fine people at MacWEEK may have thought they were just publishing an article about the scarcity of PowerBook G4s in the channel, what they've really done is give thousands of Mac-using Michael J. Fox fans reason to smile. Tekserve sales manager Teresa Rivera mentions that "a couple of celebrities" have placed orders for the hard-to-get titanium wonders from the New York Apple specialist that employs her. She refused to name names overtly, but eventually said: "I will tell you this. I saw a commercial last night for Gateway with Michael J. Fox. Let me put it this way, I was very surprised at that." Ahhh, so Mr. J. Fox is shilling for el cheapo Gateways even as he's using his clout to snag one of the first PowerBook G4s off the line! We forgive you, Michael. The Gateway gig was just a paycheck, and good taste in personal computing can compensate for a multitude of sins. We're all just one big happy family again.